Graham-Bertolini provides the first analysis of vigilante women in contemporary American fiction. She develops a dynamic model of vigilante heroines using literary and feminist theory and applies it to important texts to broaden our understanding of how law and culture infringe upon women's rights.
"In this wide-ranging, ambitious study of American women's writing, Alison Graham-Bertolini offers accessibly written, clearly argued, and often perceptive readings of a diverse range of texts. Her analyses shed light on an important and underexamined subject: the figure of the vigilante woman in modern American literature. ... this is a consistently engaging contribution to scholarship that ranges across twentieth-century American literature in stimulating and memorable ways." (Ruth Maxey, Contemporary Women's Writing, Vol. 10 (2), July, 2016)